Aftermarket

Beware When Using Remanufactured Common Rail Injectors

Diesel fuel injectors these days are incredibly complex, and that means remanufactured fuel injectors need extra scrutiny. Bosch, which supplies new and remanufactured diesel fuel injectors, recently tested remanufactured and rebuilt common rail injectors and found 70% failed the test.

The company tested numerous remanufactured or rebuilt common rail diesel fuel injectors purchased from several replacement suppliers. It used a Bosch EPS-815 test bench with Bosch patented Shot to Shot (SST) functionality including original equipment manufacturer calibration values. The focus was to evaluate injector performance as well as the impact these remanufactured or rebuilt injectors would have on the engine.

“Alarmingly, we found that 70% failed our comprehensive testing and would present significant engine performance issues if installed in a diesel common rail system,” says Ross Sandercock, director of diesel products for Bosch, Automotive Aftermarket.

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Vehicle performance concerns that the Bosch team found in unauthorized injectors included:

No start

Internal and external leaks

Rough idle

White and black smoke

Low power

If those questionable diesel injectors were installed, Sandercock says, "it could result in having to redo the whole job – removing the defective common rail injector and re-installing a new injector, which could take up to eight hours. It only takes one faulty injector to negatively impact engine performance. Hardly worth a few dollars saved in injector costs."

Today’s diesel fuel injectors are controlled by the vehicle’s ECU, and are designed to cycle up to eight times per combustion event when injecting fuel into the engine.

Traditionally, legacy injectors had one injection per power stroke, explains Omar Cueto, president of L&J Diesel Service Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla., home of the Dieselogic brand. "The magic about common rail is it can inject multiple times in one power stroke. This allows the opportunity for reduction of emissions and noise with increased efficiency, power and torque."

Some aftermarket rebuilders take shortcuts, says Bosch's Sandercock.

“To produce and market fuel injectors at low prices, some remanufacturers salvage parts which are outside of tolerance, rework sealing surfaces, or add chrome to worn parts which eventually wears off. All this changes the geometry of the injector itself, leaving it unable to function as intended in the engine for which it was designed,” Sandercock says.

Another issue of lower performance of remanufactured common rail injectors is directly related to the nozzles supplied from different countries that have less experience with electric discharge machining, special coatings, extrusion treatment of the nozzle holes and other factors, Cueto says.

The calibration challenge

Perhaps an even bigger problem, Cueto contends, is the calibration of the injectors.

"To be honest, the better part of the aftermarket has been botching common rail injectors pretty badly, because the conventional test equipment available does not allow the resolution required for this advanced type of fuel injection system," he says. “Not being able to acurately measure a pre-injection or multiple injections in one power stroke can only be described as total blindness.”

On top of that, aftermarket remanufacturers, he says, don't have access to OEM internal calibrations, which makes it very difficult to calibrate such parameters as discharge volume, start of injection, end of injection, electric supply current profile and standard deviations.

Even OEMs, he contends, do not provide their own certified remanufacturers with the same level of instrumentation used in their own remanufacturing.

While Cueto agrees with Bosch's message to use caution when choosing remanufactured injectors, he also offers a different perspective on the “conventional” option. L&J Diesel Service Inc., through its Dieselogic brand, manufactures a test bench (the NEO) that uses patented fiber optic technology. He adds that when all wear parts are replaced and properly calibrated, the injector should perform as intended, regardless of the remanufacturing facility.

"Our research and development team has devoted nearly a decade to reverse engineering these internal calibrations to offer the aftermarket a choice, thus offering a resolution as good or better than the OEM, which is the true definition of a remanufactured product," Cueto says.

Comments

1.mick ogden[ September 11, 2013 @ 09:51AM ]

when the maker wont supply the parts to repair as happens repair is not possible, anyone who has stated to repair these injectors more than 5 years ago could not as bosch only 3 years ago released the parts needed, any Bosch injector under £125 has not had the parts fitted

2.Rene Visser[ November 03, 2013 @ 12:18PM ]

I agree with Mr Cueto and Mr Ogden, I am in the commonrail testing and rebuilding of injectors the past 8 years. The most makers of commonrail injectors wil not of only partly supply parts and data for rebuilding these injectors. These Makers of commonrail systems will keep us behind of the marked to sell there new of own rebuild products. The Bosch SST only for sale on the USA marked ans will not supplied on our Europian marked.

3.Muhammad Rafique Khan[ May 13, 2014 @ 09:14PM ]

I agree with Mr Ogden.

4.ROBERT DICKSON[ January 29, 2015 @ 02:51PM ]

True guys and it seems you can't even lease a testbench out for boschThey are looking 100.000 pounds for one an yet in Turkey ever hole in the wall has one .I love the bosch systems but it's an none starter her to keep thing write without out using copy parts.